Bears can be trained...you see them performing tricks in the circus all the time.

8:39 pm December 8, 2010

Jan wrote:

@Author Sobczyk

You wrote: “In the long run, Poland may face Russia’s resistance every time it tries to pursue its interests to its east or if it invites U.S. soldiers to territory that Moscow used to control.”

It is solely because of the current trade structure between Poland and Russia or among the economies the region, which is virtually dominated only by big businesses that have the nature of trying to monopolise of oligopolies respective markets. Russian elites become ‘irritated or annoyed’ every time Poles try to pursue its interests to its east or if it invites U.S. soldiers to territory that Moscow used to control because they are committed to big businesses. It is simply money that only matters. They behave rather arrogant and stubborn because big businesses are the only source of their wealth – so far.

On the contrary, small and medium-sized enterprises are thriving in Poland. The government has been trying to support them by tackling the red tape and maintaining the conservative banking system in which banks make profits by lending money and give advices to SMEs. It is the very secret of the strength of the Polish economy.

In Russia their economic structure and public choice is considerably different from those in Poland. I think it is because of the millennium-scale legal, social and mental framework of the Byzantine law in the East. I think of Poles as Western Europeans and Russians as Eastern Europeans in this regard. Both peoples are Slavs, but the ethnic criterion is only about language and distant ancient pagan memory. As the East and West meet in the region of Europe, it is not only a Russo-Polish issue but also an issue between Western Europe and Eastern Europe. That is why Poland should not indulge itself into bilateral negotiations with Russia. Poland needs to ‘agree to its limited sovereignty’ in this regard, not in the way Ms Shevtsova thinks, to stick to multilateral approaches via Brussels when it wants to talk with Russia. (Mr Medvedev visited Warsaw and flew to Brussels to attend the Russia-EU summit later while Mr Tusk had been in Berlin talking with Ms Merkel just before he met the president of Russia. Mr Komorowski stayed in Warsaw to organise the official reception. Mr Tusk also met leaders from Hungary and the Baltic states before he went to Berlin. I think he went to Ankara yesterday. I personally think of what the Polish leaders did this time as perfectly right).

I think it is impossible to change their Eastern tradition from above. Neo-cons tried to only to fail naturally quite recently, because their approach did not guarantee alternative means of jobs or incomes that they should find after the change. Money matters. Also, dialogues are merely a symbol by which both peoples are able to know that things are going well. In other words dialogues are important, because people can to some extent decide by them how much they should invest.

Only by supporting Russian SMEs, especially in manufacturing and food processing, would Russian elites have alternative practical options to maintain their wealth and positions. An improvement of the legal framework would follow later. If the improvement is sluggish the people including the elites themselves, having been committed to SMEs by then, would get mad, as voters, at their traditional social structure and gradually build up a nationwide consensus to tackle their domestic socio-political issues that has been hindering a further development of SMEs or economic dynamism, as I think it is the most important to build a consensus among the members of a society while the current social consensus in Russia is, everybody would agree, showing some discrepancy with the status quo, especially in income and educational gaps, hidden future public liabilities and long-term socioeconomic development. Jeffery Sachs and Yegor Gaidar tried to change it from above only to fail and anger Russians. Neo-cons forced Russia to change from above only to fail and anger Russians. I think it is natural that those approaches were doomed to fail and anger Russians.

It is high time that the Westerners who think Russians were arrogant, stubborn bears began recognising that they had also been as arrogant and stubborn in approaches towards Russians choosing either a combative stance like the old Poland or flattery stance like France and Germany, because it is big businesses, not big clusters of SMEs, that has mattered at trades with Russia. It is very interesting that the government that vocally tries to support the society with more SMEs emerged in Poland first of all the European states. The Polish-Russian thaw, temporary or long-term, is a natural consequence of its ‘old Whiggish’ approaches. This is the real realpolitik - a Whiggish version of realpolitik that is totally different from the kind of realpolitik once explicitly advocated and implemented by Hegelians like the German Historische Schule.

9:31 pm December 8, 2010

Jan wrote:

@Author Sobczyk

I forgot to add 'Mr Komorowski is in Washington talking with Mr Obama yesterday.' between 'I think he went to Ankara yesterday.' and 'I personally think of what the Polish leaders did this time as perfectly right' in the fourth paragraph of my previous post.

10:18 pm December 8, 2010

Bingo wrote:

Is it turning to a matter of who suports who?

4:19 am December 9, 2010

SlyTR wrote:

Smiling to the American Monkey

9:22 am December 10, 2010

Mask wrote:

So the Duck Boy (Kaczynski) says the visit brought nothing - is he on drugs again?

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